


A Message Left in Lipstick

by aceofjapan



Series: YOI Angst Week 2020 [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (Sorry boys), Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate universe - Mafia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Badass Katsuki Yuuri, Badass Victor Nikiforov, Blood and Violence, Confident Katsuki Yuuri, Don't copy to another site, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mafia Katsuki Yuuri, Mafia Victor Nikiforov, Married Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Minor Character Death, Murder Husbands, Rescue Missions, Torture, Victor Nikiforov is Extra, Whump, YOI Angst Week 2020
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27919882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofjapan/pseuds/aceofjapan
Summary: And that’s how it began.Every time Yuuri was tasked with another mission, Victor would send him off with a lipstick kiss good luck, right at the base of his neck.And time and time again Yuuri returned home safe and sound and victorious to his husband inside the tech booth, keeping operations running smoothly.They never forgot, and it never failed, and quickly it turned from a game to a routine to a serious superstition. No matter what they were doing, no matter how urgent the matter or how busy Victor was when Yuuri received another task, they always found a moment. Just a moment for Victor to press his lips to the base of Yuuri’s neck, a token to keep him safe.They never forgot.Until they did.--Written for YOI Angst Week 2020 Day 1 - Furious
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: YOI Angst Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044462
Comments: 119
Kudos: 105
Collections: YOI Angst Week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Xyliandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyliandra/gifts).



> My submission for Day one of YOI Angst Week: **Furious**.
> 
> I want to thank [Ari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wishopenastar/pseuds/Wishopenastar) and [IA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncandescentAntelope/pseuds/IncandescentAntelope) for their help beta reading and whipping this fic into shape. This idea was born when [Xy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyliandra) gave me the title for [a meme on twitter](https://twitter.com/Xyliandra/status/1297597519413809152) (contains spoilers), so thank you!
> 
> As... so many of my Angst Week fics, this was originally meant to be a one-shot. Well. It's not. But It's completed at 8 chapters and will post every other Monday 💜
> 
> Check out the Angst Week Collection as well as [twitter](http://twitter.com/yoiangstweek) and [tumblr](http://yoiangstweek.tumblr.com/) to see more amazing AW works!

  


The first time had been a mere stroke of bad luck.

Or maybe good luck, as it turned out.

It was in the nature of their jobs that they had to be ready to get to work at a moment’s notice.

And for Yuuri, “work” sometimes meant having to travel halfway around the globe to get rid of some disagreeable subject or another. It might mean being gone for weeks as he staked out, planning out his every movement meticulously, familiarising himself with his target’s routines and habits.

But sometimes, it also meant a traitor having to be hunted down and eliminated quickly and without mercy, rather than with circumspection and precision.

It had been one of the latter cases that night.

Victor and Yuuri had been looking forward to having a quiet, _intimate_ night in, both of them free for once of their nightly obligations. They had had a lovely glass of wine over their shared dinner, and afterwards, Victor had casually unbuttoned the top three buttons of his dress shirt and revealed the gorgeous deep red lace that lay against his pale skin underneath.

It hadn’t taken Yuuri long after that to unwrap him like a present and reveal all of the beautiful silk and the delicate scalloped edges of lace that framed his chest, his ass, his thighs. When Victor had revealed the lipstick tube in a matching tone, Yuuri had wasted no time in applying it reverently to Victor’s lips. He could already feel the red burning against his skin like a brand.

Victor had just stepped behind him, leaning down, his entire body a sinful, graceful curve, and had pressed his lips, hot and soft, against the back of Yuuri’s neck, when Yuuri’s phone rang.

Yuuri leaned over reluctantly—in his position he could not afford not to check his phone, no matter the time or occupation—ready to dismiss anything but a call of the utmost importance.

It was the Pakhan.

And when the Pakhan called, you did not let it ring out.

Yuuri reached for the phone and picked it up. “Yes?” (They did not use names on the phone. Never—not even aliases.)

Victor’s hands were still resting on his chest from behind, Victor’s breath hot against his neck, and Yuuri tried to hold on to the rapidly fading hope that they might be able to continue what they started.

“We have a runner”, said the voice at the other end of the line.

Yuuri let out a breath, careful not to let it sound like a sigh.

“I’ll be there in five.”

“Bring your husband.”

“Nh.”

The line clicked as the Pakhan hung up, and Yuuri allowed himself a real sigh, picking up one of Victor’s hands from his chest and pressing a kiss to the inside of his wrist.

“I’m afraid our services are needed, my love”, he said, getting up from his seat on the sofa and turning around to face Victor, who was looking at him with a clear pout on his face.

“I heard”, he said, “We really can’t have nice things, can we?”

Yuuri gave a sardonic smile, stepping around the sofa towards his husband and running his fingers ever so gently along the edges of lace on Victor’s chest.

“Don’t let the Pakhan hear you like that”, he murmured, leaning in to place a firm kiss over Victor’s collarbone. “Now you better get dressed before I forget myself after all.”

They had made it to the Pakhan’s office, dressed and fully equipped, in five minutes and ten seconds, which earned them a displeased grunt from the man himself, and after a quick briefing, Yuuri was sent on his way. There was no time to be lost—Mickey, it seemed, had made away in the darkness with the extensive portfolio that his sister Sara had meticulously researched on the Czech mafia over the last few months. To which end was of yet unclear, though Sara suspected that he had turned coat for the Czech and attempted to deprive them of their hard-earned ammunition against Nekola and his people.

It was futile, of course; the records had long since been copied and safely stowed both by the Pakhan personally in physical form and by Victor in a secure, encrypted digital storage. So Yuuri’s goal was not primarily to retrieve the records as much as making sure that Michele was punished for his betrayal before he could find sanctuary with the enemy.

Sara, who was present throughout the briefing, had been the one to inform the Pakhan of Michele’s sudden disappearance, which surprised Yuuri to no small extent. He hadn’t known the twins to ever do anything other than fiercely defend each other, even though Mickey seemed to be the one who clung more to his sister. But now Sara was livid, a rather impressive experience, and could hardly get Yuuri at her brother’s heels fast enough, even though she knew quite well what that would mean for his well-being.

It wasn’t for Yuuri to question her reasons and motivations, though—that was the Pakhan’s prerogative. He was only here to carry out the Pakhan’s orders, and if the Pakhan said to go after Michele Crispino, then go after Michele Crispino he would, with everything he had.

He was sent ahead alone at first, to sniff out Mickey’s trail and make sure that he did not disappear on them. Reinforcements would be sent after him later, once they had been briefed and equipped and he could give them an actual location. He shared a quick, deep kiss with Victor, one of his husband’s hands tugging at the dark fabric of his suit, the other ghosting over the back of his neck; thumb running along the lipstick kiss still etched there.

Then Yuuri turned away and, without looking back, ducked into one of the organisation’s pursuit cars, sleek and dark grey, with a powerful engine under the hood and a host of equipment in the trunk, but a common enough build and brand to be mistaken for just another company car.

It didn’t take him long to track Michele down—he knew the man well enough to judge where he would go, the paths he would take to try and outfox Yuuri who he must surely know would be sent after him. Yuuri also knew in which holes and corners the Czech were hiding their operation, thanks to Sara’s perfectly researched portfolio.

All things considered, he was almost disappointed by how easy it had been when he came upon one of the cars that he recognised as belonging to Nekola in a vacant parking lot of a run-down gambling house.

The car was empty, no guards keeping watch on the parking lot—another careless mistake. Clicking his tongue, Yuuri entered the gambling house, katana on his back, guns at his hip and under his arm. Reinforcements hadn’t made it yet, but for once Yuuri was not worried—this much he could take on on his own.

The hall was open, dim lights overhead accented by the flickering and blinking of the slot machines placed along the walls of the room, casting everything into multi-coloured gloom—but it was deserted. Not even an employee behind the bar, though Yuuri got the distinct feeling they may just be trying to stay out of the way.

He hadn’t been in this particular establishment before, but they were all essentially the same. Most importantly, there was always a back room. Yuuri crossed the empty, flickering hall quietly, staying aware of his surroundings, the shadows in which people could lurk, in search of the back room.

There were voices murmuring on the other side, no more than two by Yuuri’s best guess, though of course there could be more people in the room, staying silent. The light falling through the crack under the door didn’t tell him anything more except that no one was standing directly between the door and the light source.

One hand his gun, Yuuri ducked his head, casting a quick glance at the lock, and had to suppress a sigh.

The door wasn’t even locked.

Through the old-fashioned keyhole, he could see the movement of two shapes, no more.

He straightened up, one hand resting lightly on the door handle, the other reaching back toward the handle of his Katana. This was a delicate situation—a betrayal the like of which Michele had committed was grave, and called for something a little more _personal_ than a gun. At the same time, the Russians’ relation with the Czech mafia was tense but not openly hostile, and a too heavy-handed approach in this moment could make the situation escalate unnecessarily.

Yuuri took a deep breath and let it out slowly, soundlessly, centering himself. Then he opened the door.

It only took him a moment to assess the situation in the room—two men sitting close together bent over papers spread over the table, just half a second of soundless shock as they looked up, then a long string of the most colourful Italian swear words, many of which Yuuri had heard just a little earlier from Sara. Unlike his sister, however, Michele sounded more scared than angry, seeing Yuuri standing in the door, drawing his Katana in one long, smooth motion, which Yuuri noted with a rush of satisfaction.

Both men jumped up from their seats, and the taller of the two didn’t hesitate before positioning himself in front of Michele. With some surprise, Yuuri recognised him as Nekola’s eldest son and right hand, Emil, and he didn’t miss the way Michele’s fingers curled around his arm as he hissed at him. “It’s Cain!”

Flicking his wrist and making his Katana hum, Yuuri met Emil’s eyes, who squared his shoulders and drew himself up to his full height.

“Step aside, Nekola”, Yuuri said, voice measured, “I have come to settle a debt in the Pakhan’s name.”

“No”, Emil said, without hesitation, and Yuuri raised an eyebrow at him. “Mickey is under the Nekola’s protection now. Leave.”

“I’m afraid I cannot do that until I have fulfilled my orders. Michele has betrayed the Pakhan, and he does not let these things go unpunished.”

Yuuri could see Emil’s eyes flickering downward, could see his right hand twitch, enough to tell him that he had a gun, likely concealed under his jacket. He raised his Katana just a little more, just to make sure that its presence was not forgotten.

“How did you find me?”, Mickey asked from behind Emil, hand still curled around his arm in a way that seemed as much protective as it was fearful.

“I am hurt that you would underestimate me like this, Michele”, Yuuri said, “You know that Cain always finds his mark.”

“But I was so careful!”

The corners of Yuuri’s mouth twitched up in a pitying smile.

Michele whimpered, but then his expression firmed into something harder, his hand slipping a little higher on Emil’s arm.

“For fuck’s sake, Cain, can’t you let us go? You… you should understand what it’s like, you should get it! You’ve done the same!”

Yuuri sighed. “I would prefer it if you did not lump me in with yourself, Michele. You will recall that I did not betray my employer when I joined the Pakhan, nor did I steal any crucial confidential information to supply to the enemy. Besides”, Yuuri tilted his head to the side, considering, “you know as well as I do that I do not make the decisions here. The Pakhan has declared you a traitor and ordered your death. I am merely here to make it so.”

Michele closed his eyes for a moment, then stepped to the side, out of Emil’s protection.

“Mickey!” Emil tried to shift to stand before him again right away, but Michele, hand still on his arm, held him firm.

“Are you going to hurt Emil?”, Michele asked.

“Not if he lets me do my job. The Pakhan has no wish to escalate the situation with the Czech further at this point.” The latter words Yuuri addressed to Nekola himself, emphasising them with a raise of his eyebrow.

“No.” Emil’s voice brooked no argument. “I am not going to let you hurt him.”

Yuuri sighed, letting his blade dance in his hand.

“Then I’m afraid things are going to get ugly.”

* * *

Crossing the parking lot, Yuuri carefully wiped the blood off of his blade before it had a chance to dry, then slid it back into its sheath.

This had almost been too easy.

Sliding back into the driver seat of his car, he dumped the packet of blood-spattered paper he had collected from the back room on the passenger seat, wrapped into a plastic bag so as to not get any blood on the expensive upholstery. He presumed that someone from the Czech Mafia would come sooner or later, and he would certainly not leave the portfolio for them to find.

Making a quick call to headquarters to let them know it was done and the backup would not be needed after all, he pulled out of the parking lot, past Nekola’s deserted shimmering green sports car.

Nekola’s men would surely be picking it up soon, along with their Boss’s son. Emil would be okay, at least physically, that much Yuuri had made sure of. No injuries that a skilled doctor wouldn’t be able to mend. Emotionally… well, Yuuri was sure after tonight he had another name to add to the list of people who had sworn to get revenge on him if it was the last thing they did.

None of these people ever seemed to understand that it was not Yuuri who was their enemy, even if it was him who pulled the trigger or turned the knife. Yuuri didn’t bear any of the people he eliminated ill will—although he did have to admit that Michele’s actions had been quite spectacularly stupid—nor did he take any pleasure in eliminating them. It was just what he did. He followed his orders. He was Cain, and he always found his mark.

* * *

When he arrived back at the mansion, the first light of dawn was just beginning to tint the horizon a dull gray.

Parking the car in the driveway, he threw the keys to the attendant waiting there for him, taking with him only his own weapons and the sheaf of paper, leaving the rest of the clean-up to them. There were two figures waiting for him by the door. The first was Sara, her face grim and shaking with an emotion that might have been fury or could have been something else entirely, but she took the papers he handed her with steady hands. The second was Victor, with a well-concealed expression of relief on his face as soon as Yuuri came into view, one that Yuuri was only able to detect because he spent frankly probably too much of his time staring at his husband’s face like a man bewitched.

He stopped only for a second to pull Victor in by the back of his head and give him a firm, close-mouthed kiss on the lips before he kept walking, into the mansion and along its hallways. Victor fell into step next to him easily, their shoes echoing in the near darkness. “How did it go?”, Victor asked, knowing that he would get no more than a vague nod in response for now, because Yuuri knew better than to report to anyone, even to his husband, before he had reported to the Pakhan.

It took another couple of hours of debriefing and dealing with the fallout of the night before Victor and Yuuri were finally allowed to return to their own apartment on the property.

The guns having been safely stored away in the main mansion, Yuuri’s first action after slipping out of his shows was to unstrap his katana and return it to its resting place. Only then did he turn around and walk into his waiting husband’s arms, wrapping him in a firm embrace to kiss him again, properly this time.

“So, how did it really go?” Victor asked, a little breathless, once they broke apart. “It can’t possibly have gone as well as you told the Pakhan.”

Yuuri raised an eyebrow at him. “When have you ever known me to lie to the Pakhan?”

Victor shrugged.

“No, it went exactly as I said. It was almost ridiculously easy. It was like Michele and Nekola hadn’t made any plans at all, taken no precautions.” He freed himself from Victor’s embrace and loosened his tie, slipped off his jacket, eager to be rid of his blood spattered suit and the restricting layers of protective kevlar underneath. “And maybe they didn’t. Maybe it was a spur of the moment thing, running away together.” He shrugged, turning away to throw the jacket over the back of a chair and starting to unbutton his shirt with unsteady fingers. “In any case, it all went very smoothly. Looks like luck was on my side tonight.”

He heard Victor chuckle behind him, a little more amused than his words had called for and, looking over his shoulder, he saw his husband approaching him.

“It better have been”, he said, mirth in his voice, “after I so lovingly kissed you good luck earlier.” His fingers ran along Yuuri’s neck, a touch so feather-light that it made Yuuri shiver, and it was only now that Yuuri quite remembered what they had been up to before the Pakhan had called him.

“Oh”, he said, staring at Victor over his shoulder, a little dumb-struck, and Victor grinned back at him, slipping the shirt off Yuuri’s shoulders, leaving him in his Kevlar, and leading him gently a few steps to the side toward a mirror.

Twisting himself around, Yuuri could see the bright red lipstick kiss still emblazoned on his skin, at the base of his neck, right between where his hair ended and his kevlar began.

“Indeed you did”, Yuuri said, and couldn’t help the smile spreading on his face as he reached back to gently touch the skin there with his fingertips, meeting his husband’s eyes in the mirror.

Still standing behind him, Victor let his hands wander over Yuuri’s torso, gently undoing the straps holding his kevlar in place until it slid off, sinking to the floor, forgotten, and he leaned down to press another soft, warm kiss right there at on Yuuri’s neck.

“I’m glad you’re back safe”, Victor murmured against his skin.

His hands were still exploring Yuuri’s chest and sides, though there was no more clothing to undo now, and Yuuri grabbed ahold of one of them, squeezing it tight.

“I will always return to you. You know that.”

Biting his lip, he turned around suddenly, facing Victor, searching his gaze.

“Were we that careless?”, he asked.

Victor tilted his head at him in a question.

“Like Michele and Emil. Were we that reckless back then? That stupid?”

Victor laughed, a quiet, silent thing between them. “I know I certainly was. But you… no, you were always careful. You always made sure that we were safe. That I was safe.”

Yuuri hummed, throwing his arms over Victor’s shoulders, pressing himself close. “I don’t believe that’s true”, he murmurs, mouthing kisses along Victor’s jaw. “Even now I feel like I don’t have an ounce of sense around you. And back then…”, he captured Victor’s mouth in a deep languid kiss, and Victor did not release him long enough to finish the sentence.

And that’s how it began.

Every time Yuuri was tasked with another mission, Victor would send him off with a lipstick kiss good luck, right at the base of his neck.

Sometimes it was a vivid red and sometimes a deep plum and sometimes a pale peach shade barely distinguishable from Yuuri’s own skin tone, but it was always there.

And time and time again Yuuri returned home safe and sound and victorious to his husband inside the tech booth, keeping operations running smoothly.

They never forgot, and it never failed, and quickly it turned from a game to a routine to a serious superstition. No matter what they were doing, no matter how urgent the matter or how busy Victor was when Yuuri received another task, they always found a moment, even without lipstick, if need be. Just a moment for Victor to press his lips to the base of Yuuri’s neck, a token to keep him safe.

They never forgot.

Until they did.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2!
> 
> Thank you folks for the stunning reception of the last chapter.  
> Here's the next chapter for you, and from this point forward updates will come every other monday.
> 
> (Since I have 4 fics posting right now, I'm doing two chapters a week. This one and everything that matters this week, you can never know and TGU the next, and so on.)

Perhaps it was unfair to say that they forgot.

They would never forget something so important.

But Victor had been out on a mission, one of the rare instances he was needed on site, hacking into the database of a rival drug cartel.

And Yuuri had been given a new mark, a time sensitive case—a corrupt politician that had double crossed the Pakhan, to be eliminated before he left the country with the hefty bribe that he had not done his part to earn.

By the time Victor returned to the mansion, Yuuri was in a car on his way to the airport where a private plane would fly him out to Moscow.

Victor tried to keep the thought out of his mind as he and Mila debriefed with the Pakhan, tried to keep the sinking feeling in his stomach from spreading into his limbs. It was just a stupid superstition. There was no meaning to it.

Nonetheless he fidgeted his way through the debriefing, hoping he’d be done in time to call Yuuri on the phone before he got on the plane.

In the end the Pakhan was so exasperated with his constant shaking and twitching that he sent Victor away with a barked command, saying that he would get the rest of the information from Mila who was actually good for something. Victor was too relieved to even worry about having upset the Pakhan.

He was barely out of the office when he slipped his phone out of his pocket, and had no sooner dialed Yuuri’s number that Yuuri was already picking up.

“ _Lyubov moya_ ”, Victor breathed into the receiver, “I heard…”

“Yeah”, Yuuri replied on the other end of the line, “we’re pulling in to the airport now.”

Victor bit his lip. “We didn’t—”

“I know.” There was a rush of static as Yuuri sighed. “Don’t worry too much, darling. It’s not a particularly high-risk mission. I’ll be fine.”

Victor chuckled softly. “To think the day would come when _you_ tell _me_ not to worry too much…”

A pained noise at the other end of the line. “I… guess it can’t be helped now. I’m already on my way.”

“I know.”

“We’re here, I have to get going.”

There was a long moment of silence in which they both knew exactly what the other wasn’t saying.

Finally, it was Victor who spoke. “Be careful.”

“I always am.”

There was a click and Yuuri was gone.

It would be a while yet before Yuuri’s mission proper began, so Victor took some time to rest and recover from his own mission. He knew he would be of no use to anyone if he was drowsy and exhausted.

A few hours later he walked into the tech booth, and no one challenged him when he wordlessly took over the position of Yuuri’s main tech liaison in this mission. He usually was, anyway, the only reason Georgi had been appointed for the position was that at the time it had not yet been certain when Victor and Mila would return from their own task.

Now that he was here, Victor would brook no argument trying to keep him away, but thankfully Georgi conceded the position readily, briefing Victor on everything he needed to know.

Victor listened carefully, then did his own research; on the politician, the situation that had led to him becoming Yuuri’s unfortunate mark, the hotel he was staying at, his security detail. Accounting for all eventualities, he began planning access routes and escape routes, put together abstracts on the bodyguards’ strengths and weaknesses, gained access to the hotel’s security system so he could tap into the feed of their security cameras.

By the time Yuuri’s plane landed and he was picked up by the Moscow liaison, everything was prepared.

The next time Victor heard Yuuri’s voice it was over their own secure com connection, through the mic discreetly attached to Yuuri’s neck with a patch perfectly matching his skin tone that would keep Yuuri in contact with base throughout the mission.

“Cain, confirm connection.”

“Loud and clear, base.”

It was always a little strange to speak to one another so formally on a mission, but they were both professionals, they had been doing this for long before they had known one another. Besides, it was a small price to pay to keep everyone involved safe and the mission running smoothly. Still, Victor could hear the smile in Yuuri’s words when he heard that it was Victor’s voice in his ear.

“On our way into the city now. Target’s location still unchanged?”

“It is”, Victor confirmed. The politician, one Josef Karpisek, seemed to have no intention of leaving his hotel room before his flight was scheduled in the morning, evidently believing himself safe there. “Your liaison with you?”

“He’s here, yes.” There was a note of bewilderment and amusement in Yuuri’s voice, and Victor tried to recall if he’d ever met their Moscow liaison before. Either way, Yuuri would surely have his fun with young Yuri Plisetsky.

Just then, the mic picked up an angry snarl, somewhat fainter than Yuuri’s voice, a demand to “stop talking about me, pig!”, to which Yuuri chuckled and replied “If you feel so strongly about it, I will make sure to never mention you again.”

Yuri’s reply must have been non-verbal, because the mic didn’t pick up anything else from him.

“Sure”, Yuuri said to whatever it had been, voice as calm as ever, then he asked: “How long to destination?”

“About twenty minutes or so”, Yuri grumbled, then he seemed to remember that this was an actual mission he was on, because he amended: “Twenty-three, to be exact.”

“You heard him, base”, Yuuri said, “You have twenty-three minutes. Show me what you got.”

The rest of the car ride was spent making Yuuri familiar with the specifics of the situation—he’d already studied what information they’d had available on the plan, such as the floor plan of the hotel and its security system, as well as the layout of the surrounding streets. The more short-notice info however—what room was Karpisek staying in, how many guards he had and where they were placed, how much staff was in the hotel, and so on—was conveyed to him now by Victor, along with every bit of information about Karpisek’s habits and demeanour that he’d been able to find out.

Yuuri listened patiently, occasionally amending something or asking for a clarification, or turning toward Plisetsky for details about the locale that Victor could not provide from a distance. Between them, they set up a solid game plan, plus a few alternatives in case anything unexpected should happen. Victor knew that Yuuri also had at least another half a dozen contingency plans running at the back of his mind, ready to switch gears at the slightest indication of anything going wrong.

The driver took them to an empty parking garage nearby, and Yuuri and Yuri would walk the remaining short distance to the hotel. Even in the middle of the night, Yuuri could hardly walk into a hotel with a katana strapped to his back, though, so he had to stick to his guns this time. Not that it mattered—Victor knew Yuuri could get the job done just fine either way. In all honesty, he would probably not need any kind of weapon in order to eliminate his mark.

Victor listened in from his end as the two men exchanged some final preparatory words and took their leave from the driver, then they fell silent as they made their way to the hotel.

* * *

Even this late into the night, Moscow’s streets were far from empty, and somehow neither Yuuri in his crisp dark suit nor Yuri in his decidedly more casual wear with his sneakers and leopard print hoodie half covered by a leather jacket, was a remarkable presence in any way. The hotel itself may be a different issue, but from their research, the hotel bar was modern and casual enough that Yuri shouldn’t be too out of place in the foyer, and if everything went well, there would be no need for him to go any further.

It was easier for a single person to go unnoticed, especially if that person was Yuuri, who had perfected the art of being inconspicuous over the years. With his hair gelled back, covering his undercut, and wearing glasses that he didn’t actually need since he was wearing contacts, a face mask and his suit that was expensive but not too expensive, he could easily slip into the role of every Japanese business man ever if questioned. So he and Yuri parted ways in the foyer without giving any indication that they knew each other.

Yuri slunk off to the side, slouching against a stone column, ostensibly focused on something on his phone, while Yuuri walked on, making his way to the elevators. Karpisek didn’t have any of his men down here, but they knew there was hotel security keeping an eye out for any suspicious looking guests. Thanks to Victor’s intel Yuuri knew exactly where they were stationed, and a subtle glance around while he was waiting for the elevator to arrive told him that they were not paying any particular attention to either of them.

The elevator stopped in the lobby and Yuuri entered with a couple of other guests, giving them each a polite if distanced nod before pressing the button for the twelfth floor with the knuckle of his finger, an action that was easily explained away by retrieving a small bottle of hand disinfectant from his pocket and coating his hands in it as the elevator rode up. Karpisek’s suite was on the top floor, but Yuuri would take the stairs up the final few floors, since it would be easier to go undetected. The other two guests left him at the sixth and eighth floor respectively and no one else got on; Yuuri was left on his own. He made sure not to act any differently than he had before—he knew there were security cameras in the lifts.

He did murmur under his breath, though, as if to himself, knowing that the mic on his neck would pick up the slightest vibrations. “Base, I’m on my way up. Getting off on twelve.” He said it in Japanese, just in case. There weren’t any mics in the elevators as far as they knew, but one could never be too careful, and he knew Victor’s grasp of the language was good enough to understand him.

“ _Wakarimashita_. I’m ready for you”, came the reply in his ear.

The elevator dinged, the doors gliding open, and Yuuri stepped out confidently, knowing that thanks to his husband’s fingers of gold, he had now vanished, as far as the security cameras were concerned. While inconspicuous footage of empty corridors was now looping in the hotel’s security office, wherever it may be, Yuuri was free to move around as he liked.

Pulling on supple, lightweight gloves with practised motions, he quickly located a door sealed with a keypad with Victor’s discreet direction and his own memories of the blueprints, leading to a stairwell that the staff used to move between floors. The door remotely unlocked for him, Yuuri pushed through and began to climb the stairs.

“Any movement?”, he murmured as he pulled one of his guns out of its holster, checking that it was correctly loaded and screwing on a silencer.

“Nope”, Victor’s voice said at the other end of the line. “All as it was. One guard in front of the suite, one in an adjacent room. None inside the suite. The one outside seems bored, but not particularly distracted. I don’t have eyes on the other.”

“Understood.”

Ideally, Yuuri would be able to take care of the guard outside without causing too much of a commotion, not alerting the other guard and not tipping off Karpisek on something being off. It would all depend on how capable the guards were, and if they were hired for brawn only or if they had some brains as well.

Reaching the fifteenth floor, Yuuri paused just inside the door of the stairwell, pulling off his face mask. There was no need to conceal his face here, and the mask posed too much of a risk of getting in the way or being grabbed by his opponents. He carefully stowed it in his pocket, clicked off the safety of his gun and pushed open the door.

The blueprint and Victor had told him that the door was not in the guard’s view, and indeed he was able to slip out into the corridor unseen, his gun lowered, hidden half behind his body. He moved noiselessly down the hall until he came to a corner behind which, he knew, lay the door to Karpisek’s suite. Casting a quick glance around the corner gave him a good idea of the situation—a few meters down the hall was the door, beyond it the corridor continued and turned around another corner. Right opposite the door was the elevator and the door to the main stairwell, both of which could only be operated with the correct key card. The guard, bulky and clad in a classic black suit, stood leaning against the door frame, facing the elevator and stairwell. His posture was somewhat slumped, his arms crossed, a foot drawing idle patterns on the carpet that he looked down at every once in a while—indeed bored, but not distracted enough for Yuuri to sneak up on him.

Taking a few steps back until he could be sure to be out of earshot, Yuuri murmured: “Base, are the other rooms on this floor occupied?”

There was a moment of silence as Victor checked the information. “Two other suites on this floor, one on your side of the corridor, one on the other end. The one on your end is occupied by one Ji Guang-Hong, the other by an Alexei Rybakov.”

“Ji Guang-Hong?”, Yuuri asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yes. Chinese, it appears. Young C-Drama star, in Moscow for a PR event.”

“Hm”, Yuuri looked down at himself. “Close enough.” He slipped the glasses off his face and into his pocket, and loosened his tie and the top button of his shirt. “Do you know if the guards had any contact with them?”

Another pause, murmuring of voices in the background.

“Not since we’ve been watching them. Which was from around three this afternoon.”

“Got it.”

Yuuri straightened up, clicking on the safety of his gun and stowing it in the waistband of his trousers, hidden under his jacket. Then he shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled towards the elevator, as casual as he could.

He could see the guard straightening when he turned the corner, eyeing him suspiciously, and Yuuri eyed him back with barely concealed curiosity, but didn’t hesitate in his steps, just walked up to the elevator and pushed the button to call it. As he was “waiting”, he walked from side to side a little in an imitation of boredom and impatience, wandering a little closer to the guard. When the guard shifted, Yuuri looked up and gave him a casual nod. The guard’s eyes narrowed, but by then it was already too late.

It took only two more quick steps and a well-placed blow with the edge of Yuuri’s hand and the guard slumped to the ground where he stood. Yuuri lost no time in bending down and retrieving the key card from the guard’s pocket, and removing the gun from his holster. Then he drew his own gun again, clicking off the safety before keying open the door. Pushing it open, gun half-raised, he noted with some relief that the front room of the suite was dark and, as far as he could tell, deserted. After a quick sweep to make sure no one was lurking in the corners he returned to the open door through which some light was streaming in, and pulled the unconscious guard inside as soundlessly as he could. Then he closed the door, hoping that the absence of the guard would be less cause for suspicion than him lying sprawled in front of the door of the man he was supposed to protect.

Taking deep breaths, Yuuri took a minute until his eyes had gotten used to the darkness and he could make out the shape of the furniture in the scant light falling in through the windows. The front room was a kind of living room with a small kitchenette sectioned off in a corner. There were three doors going off from this room, one of which was open. Yuuri checked that one first; it led to a bedroom that was unoccupied and looked unused. The other doors would lead to the bathroom and the master bedroom then. There was no light to be seen under either door.

Yuuri identified the bathroom easily by the lock set into the door and checked it, too—it was dark, and there was a second door apparently leading to the bedroom slightly ajar, from which the faint sound of snoring could be heard. Creeping through the bathroom, gun held at his side, Yuuri peered into the bedroom, where he could make out the shape of a man spread out on the bed, sleeping soundly. He was bald—that much Yuuri could see even in the near-darkness—so it was likely Karpisek. A suitcase was open on the floor, various clothes and other possessions strewn on the furniture and the foot of the bed.

Checking the bedside table and the bed, Yuuri didn’t find any weapons or other unusual objects, though he did move Karpisek’s phone well out of his reach on the dresser, just in case. Then he flicked on the bedside lamp and, because he was not in the habit of killing sleeping men, he pulled the bathroom door closed behind him with a click.

The sound was enough to rouse Karpisek somewhat from his deep sleep, to stop his snoring, but not quite enough to wake him fully. From his position by the bathroom door Yuuri raised his hand with the gun, pointing it at his mark, though not at anything vital just yet.

“Good evening, Mister Karpisek.”


	3. Chapter 3

It was always a particular treat for Victor to watch—or listen to—Yuuri work. Even now with the undeniable undercurrent of worry that he tried hard not to pay too much attention to, there was a surge of pride and affection tingling through him as he watched Yuuri stroll down the corridor with confidence and take down the bodyguard without breaking a sweat. On his screen he could watch the actual security camera footage, as opposed to the doctored one that he was feeding back to the hotel, and he could watch Yuuri's movements until he disappeared into the hotel suite.

After that, he had to rely on sound only, as there were no cameras in the suite. Men such as Karpisek tended to value their privacy rather highly. For a few minutes the connection was almost completely quiet as Yuuri presumably scoped out the suite, and when his voice came through the mic again, it sent a shiver down Victor's spine.

"Good evening, Mr. Karpisek."

It was such a different tone from his usual soft-spoken, deliberate voice that Victor had gotten used to hearing when they were alone together, but it was familiar in its own right, reminiscent of his tone the first time Victor himself had met him. It never failed to send a thrill running through him.

Poor sleep-addled Karpisek didn't stand a chance, really. Victor listened as Yuuri calmly dismissed Karpicek's attempts at bargaining and got him to unlock the safe in the bedside table that apparently contained the Pakhan's _gift_ that Karpisek had so rudely failed to appreciate. Keeping an eye on the security camera footage to make sure there were no interruptions on their way, Victor smiled to himself. Yuuri handled himself as he always did, calm, efficient and completely impervious to any insults or pleading Karpisek might throw at him. Once he had the bribe back in his hands, he did not unnecessarily draw out his job any longer. The dull thud of the shot muffled by the silencer was barely picked up by the mic, and there was no shout, no noise of a body dropping. A good, clean kill.

"It's done", came Yuuri's murmured voice a moment later in his ear. "Any trouble?"

Double checking the cameras, Victor answered in the negative. The corridors and stairwell of the top floors were still clear. Yuri was still in position in the foyer with no signs of any disturbance.

There was a minute intake of breath on the other end of the line.

"Cain?", Victor asked, the beginnings of an uncomfortable feeling twisting into his stomach.

"There's lights in the front room", Yuuri said, a barely discernible whisper now. "You sure no one's come in from the hall?"

"I'm sure", Victor replied, nonetheless rewinding the footage of the camera that had the door to the suite in view, but there was no movement since Yuuri had entered the room. "Could you have missed someone hiding in the suite?"

"There must be another entrance."

Victor bit his lips. "Perhaps from the adjacent room with the other bodyguard. If so, it's not in the blueprints."

"Perhaps. But then why would they not come in here and stop me?"

"Can you see outside?" Frantically clicking through his windows, Victor tried to find any footage or information that would help him help Yuuri. The blueprints didn't tell him anything, the door to the bodyguards' room in the hall hadn't opened since their last relief earlier in the evening.

"Not without opening the door", came Yuuri's voice, accompanied by the rustling of fabric. "The windows don't open, unsurprisingly."

"You're on the fifteenth floor, Cain. You're not going out the windows." Taking a deep breath Victor closed his eyes and rapidly thought through the possibilities in order of likelihood. "Most likely it's just the other bodyguard. You can handle them."

"I don't deal in most likely", Yuuri said, voice a sharp hiss over the remote connection.

"I don't think you have a choice right now."

"I know." Static as Yuuri let out a deep breath.

"Be careful", Victor said. There was no reply but more rustling, Yuuri moving.

Straining his ears, Victor tried to discern the slightest noise in hopes of judging what was happening. It was, of course, a boon that Yuuri had perfected the art of moving near soundlessly, but right now Victor wished there was any indication to let him know what was happening. He cursed the fact that he didn't have any visuals.

"Shit." The whispered curse made Victor clench his fists painfully.

"What is it?"

"At least six people out there, that I can see from the bathroom door. They're—", a pause, and with the mic attached to Yuuri's neck, his swallowing was audible even to Victor. "They're clearly waiting for me."

Taking no time to curse out loud, Victor's fingers began flying over the keyboard. "Armed?"

"Yes."

"Recognise any of them?"

A pause. "No."

Pressing a button on his controls, Victor activated Yuri's voice connection. "Puma."

"What", came the immediate acerbic response.

"Cain's in trouble. You've gotta get up there."

To Yuri's credit, when it really mattered he didn't waste any time on cursing or questioning Victor. On camera Victor could see him moving immediately.

"They've seen me." Yuuri's flat voice dragged Victor's attention away immediately. "Listen."

There was the unmistakable sound of guns being drawn, safeties clicking off. "I'm going out there. Don't send Puma up here, there's too many. And...", Yuuri's voice cut off so suddenly that for a moment Victor thought the connection had failed, but then he heard a sigh, short and sharp. "I love you."

Victor’s blood ran cold with dread. “Yu—… Cain! What are you doing?” Half-risen to his feet, Victor was aware of the other occupants of the tech room staring at him, but he could only keep his own eyes fixed on the screen before him, staring at the door to the suite through the security camera, desperately wishing there was some way for him to penetrate it.

Yuuri didn’t reply to his question, but Victor heard the sound of a door being opened, a distant murmuring that was cut off, and then, all at once, a cacophony of shouts and noises, gunshots both silenced and not. Victor, hands clenched tightly around the edge of his desk, closed his eyes, trying to discern as much as he could from the mess of sounds. He could count at least five separate voices, two female and three male, none of which sounded familiar. Most of it was a litany of directions, exclamations of anger and wordless yells of pain, but there was one voice rising above the others and the gunshots, making him flinch in relief and dread all at once.

“Remember, we need him alive!”

This was not an accidental encounter, nor was it spontaneous. This had been planned. Yuuri was right: they had been waiting for him.

“Vi—shit, base, what is going on up there?”

Yuri’s voice in his ear shook Victor out of his paralysis. He was still responsible for this mission, still responsible not only for Yuuri but for the rest of the team as well. It would not do to let them down.

Prying his painfully clenched teeth apart with some difficulty, Victor took a deep breath. “Shootout”, he pressed out, “might have been an ambush of sorts. You'd better not get too close.”

Checking the screens Victor saw that Yuri had made it up to the thirteenth floor.

“What do you mean, not get too close? Didn’t you say Cain was in trouble?”

“He—”, Victor swallowed, then straightened up, forcing certainty into his voice. “Stand by for now, Puma. Get eyes on them if you can but do not blow your cover. We may need you to follow them should they move.”

When Yuri did not contradict the steel of his tone, Victor switched his attention back over to Yuuri. The gunshots had ceased, but he could still hear the familiar noises of a scuffle; grunting, rustling, punches. For a moment Victor dared to hope that perhaps Yuuri would be able to best his opponents, however many of them there were. He was an excellent shot and arguably even better in hand-to-hand combat—perhaps he could…

His hope was shattered, however, when he heard two heavy thuds in quick succession, and then it suddenly went quiet.

“Cain?”, Victor asked into the mic, voice much firmer than he thought was possible, “Can you hear me?”

The only sound he heard for a few seconds were heavy, gasping breaths, then a male voice spoke in a distance.

“Stubborn bastard, isn’t he?”

Then the sound of someone spitting, and silence again for a few moments.

Then there was another voice, female, the same one that had reminded them they needed Yuuri alive, cutting through the quiet.

“He’ll be wearing a wire. Search him.”

“Fuck”, Victor hissed, “No, Cain, come on! Say something!”

More rustling, then, after a brief pause, the sound of a plaster being ripped off skin, and the line went dead.

“Fuck!” Victor shouted this time. “ _Yobanaya suka!_ ”

With one swing of his hand, he swept the files strewn across the desk off, sending them crashing to the floor. The tech booth was dead silent around him.

With shaking fingers, Victor clicked through the security camera footage. Whoever they were, they had not left the suite yet. Yuri, he could see, was lingering on the top floor around the corner from the elevators. Victor wondered how long it would be until security and staff would convene around the suite—it was unlikely that the fight, and the gunshots in particular, had gone unnoticed.

“Stay out of sight, Puma”, Victor said, his voice flat, “they’ve cut my connection to Cain so I need you to be my eyes and ears. I still have access to the cams for now but I suspect they’ll want to take him away somewhere. You’re gonna have to tell me where.”

He could hear Yuri swear under his breath. “Who are they? What have they done with him?”

Victor gritted his teeth. “Don’t worry. We’re gonna find out.”

Something in Victor’s brain having snapped over into problem-solving mode, he contacted Yuuri’s driver and the backup in the city in quick succession, giving them a brief abstract of what was happening and how they should proceed. Then, looking up, he glanced around the tech booth, many of its occupants still staring at him wide-eyed. He didn’t pay them any mind, just sent Georgi off to inform the Pakhan, knowing that he prefered to be informed immediately if anything went wrong. Only then did he go back to stare at the image of the still empty hotel hallway like he could penetrate the wood by sheer force of will alone.

“Puma, can you hear anything from within the suite?”

“No”, Yuri breathed back, “it’s dead quiet here. Should I get closer?”

Victor considered it for a moment, but it seemed too big of a risk to take, considering Yuri was his only connection to the scene right now. If they got their hands on him, too, Victor would be completely cut off, several hundred kilometers away, and by the time they got the backup on site, they might be long gone. At the same time it was tearing him apart, knowing that behind that goddamn door, that single piece of fucking wood, they could be doing _anything_ to his husband.

It was another excruciating two minutes before anything moved, before the door to the suite finally opened. In the same moment that Victor caught the movement on the screen, he also heard Yuri in his ear.

“They’re coming out.”

“Yes. Don’t let them see you.”

A woman came out first, gun in hand, checking up and down the corridor, Yuri having retreated back behind his corner. Then the woman gave a signal and the rest of the group stepped out. There were four of them, plus Yuuri, who was carried over the shoulder by one of them. Victor tensed seeing it. On the grainy security camera footage it was impossible to make out if he was hurt—if he was breathing. The third person was a woman who appeared to be talking on the phone, the fourth a man who was limping and seemed to be bleeding rather profusely, judging by the dark trail he left on the carpet.

Through the now open door of the suite, Victor could see at least three more bodies left on the ground. The sight gave him a twisted kind of satisfaction.

They didn’t linger long, moving down the corridor in the opposite direction from Yuri with some conviction.

“Service elevator”, Victor said, remembering the blueprints, “they’re headed to the service elevator. Get back downstairs, Puma, I’ll let you know where they’re heading.”

“Understood.”

Keeping an eye on the group’s movement as they waited for the elevator to arrive, Victor asked, “Could you hear anything they were saying?”

“Nothing important”, came the reply, “just which way to go, and the one guy was complaining about how Ka—Cain shot him. Fucker.”

“Were they speaking Russian, then?”

“No. English.”

“Accent?”

“Fuck knows. American, maybe?”

Victor nodded, and watched as the doors to the service elevator opened, and a person in a hotel staff uniform waved the group quickly inside. So they had someone on the inside. This really had been planned, hadn’t it? How was that even possible—until this afternoon the Pakhan himself hadn’t even known that Yuuri was going to Moscow. Victor made use of the relative lack of movement and good lighting in the elevator to save some footage and take some screenshots of the group.

“Get on these”, he said to the room at large, “We need to know who these people are ASAP. Any information at all. Go!”

The silence around him was broken as some measure of activity returned to the tech booth, the other occupants leaning over their devices, murmuring and tapping away as they looked through the footage.

“Puma, where are you now? They’re headed to the basement”, Victor said, tapping away to see if he could access the security cameras in the parking garage and the alleyway behind the hotel. He thought it unlikely that they had their getaway car in the garage—too much risk of being stuck should the hotel go into lockdown—but he wouldn’t leave any option unconsidered.

“Almost at ground floor”, Yuri huffed in his ear, “does this stairwell go into the basement?”

“Should do”, Victor said. He had found the garage security cameras, but it seemed the hotel itself didn’t have any cameras behind the building. A quick search revealed that there was a gambling parlour there that might have what he was looking for.

The service elevator had reached the basement by now, the doors sliding open, and the group was quickly manoeuvred out of it and toward a back door that, as Victor had suspected, led up a handful of stairs right into the back alley.

Victor informed the driver of the location before speaking to Yuri again.

“They’re heading toward the back. Northwest wall of the building. Don’t get too close until I tell you.”

“Northwest? Where the fuck’s that supposed to be?”, snapped Yuri in his ear.

“Out of the stairwell to your left. Dark door, says 'Exit' on it.”

A snarl was his reply. “I’m not fucking stupid!”

“You did ask”, Victor said, “I won’t run the risk of you storming out the wrong door.”

Watching the group through the gambling parlour’s cameras as they lurked in the shadow of the building, Victor noticed that one of the women was still apparently speaking into her phone. He tried to not just stare at Yuuri’s still motionless form slung over the one guy’s shoulder, the way the guy’s arm was slung around Yuuri’s thighs like he was nothing more than a sack of flour. It didn’t take long before a greyish van that was perhaps once white appeared in the alley, stopping close to the door.

“Sprinter, white and beat up, noticeable scratches on the driver side”, he told the driver, Yuri and the other people in the room. “Trying to get a view of the number plate.”

He tried to get a different angle on the car but finally had to resign himself to having to wait until the van drove off to really tell. Instead, he had to watch as his Yuuri was roughly manhandled into the back of the van along with three of the others, while the woman who had spoken on the phone climbed onto the passenger seat. Likely that she was in charge, then.

“Puma, they’re getting in the car. I’m going to try and keep an eye on which direction they’re heading but I’m not sure how long I’ll have visuals on them. Your driver should be around soon so go the fuck after them and don’t you dare lose them.”

Leaning closer to the screen, Victor focused as the van began to speed off.

“Number plate… fuck”, he said, inwardly and outwardly cursing the sorry state of Russian traffic control. “They don’t have one.” Of course you would blatantly get away with something like that in Moscow.

A moment before the van disappeared around the corner, he saw Yuri stumble out of the back door into the alley.

“Did you see it?”, Victor asked.

“Yeah. I saw it.”

“Good. Remember it. They’re heading north for now.” Listening for a moment, he then added: “T minus twenty seconds on the driver.”

Victor could see Yuri nod on the screen, as his heavy, panting breaths came through the mic.

It was indeed only a few more seconds until the car that had taken Yuuri and Yuri to the hotel came rushing around the corner, barely stopping as Yuri jumped on the passenger seat.

Following along with the pursuit, Victor tried to help direct the car, but as it moved away from the hotel and the area around it, he quickly lost his visual on the van, having to rely on the driver’s and Yuri’s own abilities to stay close to them.

Eyes glued to his useless screens, he focused on their voices in their ear and tried to follow along their path on the city grid of Moscow, hoping to figure out where they might be taking Yuuri. He was so concentrated on his task that he didn’t even notice the door opening until there was a presence next to him commanding his attention.

The Pakhan.

His arms crossed, he was scowling at Victor.

“What the hell is going on here, Vitya? I couldn’t get a coherent sentence out of Gosha.”

Gritting his teeth, Victor tore his focus away from the pursuit with some effort, though it was not like he could do anything much from here. “Still ongoing, Pakhan”, he said, “but it appears there was an ambush. Cain eliminated Karpisek and reclaimed the bribe, but they were waiting for him outside. We don’t know who they are yet, but there were too many for him to fight. They took him alive, as far as we can tell. They seem to have some kind of intention with him. Puma and Conrad are after them but… they are taking him to a secondary location.”

Yakov nodded, his scowl deepening, if possible, further. “Russian?”

“Most likely not, or not all. Puma heard them speak English amongst themselves.”

“Any indication what they want with him?”

“Not really. Only that they want him alive.”

The Pakhan grunted.

“So they either want information or his skill. Revenge would be a possible option, if the person wanting to exact it was not there, or they want to make it… personal. But it seems unlikely they’d go through that kind of trouble.”

His voice was unaffected as he spoke, levelling Victor with a measured gaze. Victor didn’t have to guess to know what was going through his mind. The likelihood of extracting Yuuri alive from a secondary location was minimal, no matter what it was they wanted from him. And Yuuri was an outsider—still, after the years he had spent with the organisation, he wasn’t one of them. Not in the way that it mattered. Victor knew almost everyone liked him, and Yakov, too, respected his skill at the very least. But Yuuri was not trained by Yakov, his family not with the Bratva for generations the way most of theirs had been. Even now, they still thought of him as an independent player, although he had been unfalteringly loyal to the Pakhan ever since he and Victor had been married.

But you didn’t risk anything for an independent player. If he got himself into trouble, then he better get himself out of it.

Victor clenched his hands around the edge of his desk so hard it hurt, refusing to look away from the Pakhan’s calculating gaze.

“I’m not going to leave him behind.”

“And what exactly are you planning on doing?”

There was no derision in the Pakhan’s voice, just that same measured gruffness that it always had.

Taking a deep breath, Victor drew himself up to his full height, reaching only just about a centimetre taller than Yakov. He thought of the last time that he had seen Yuuri, early that morning, though it seemed ages ago now. That warmth of skin on skin as he’d kissed Victor good morning.

He thought of the lack of a lipstick mark on Yuuri’s neck, the lipstick tube that Victor wasn’t quite sure why he carried burning a hole in his pocket even now. He thought of Yuuri’s final words to him, the ones they never, ever said before a mission because it felt like tempting fate. He thought about how he hadn’t said it back.

“I’m going to Moscow myself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I continue to be blown away by the response to this fic so 🙏🙏🙏 Thank you!
> 
> Also I hope the internet did okay in teaching me Russian swear words. If not, sorry!
> 
> Chapter 4 posts on Jan 11.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! But here we go with a new chapter! ❤

A rush of cold went through his system like a shock, making every muscle in his body tense and his fists clench, lungs gasping for air. With a jolt, Yuuri came to, limbs uselessly jerking against his bonds.

His eyes flew open, then squinted, painful, in bright lights.

Not wasting any time he tried to take stock of his situation, orient himself. What demanded his attention most immediately was the fact that he had obviously been drenched in cold water in an attempt to wake him up—rivulets were still running over his face and dripping down his neck, heart pounding as adrenaline coursed through his system from the shock. The water was soaking into his clothes, making them stick to his skin, clammy and heavy.

He turned his focus on the people whom he had to thank for this—there were three of them right in front of him—one of them holding a bucket, two others that he recognised from the hotel suite. His eyes were fixed on the woman in the middle as hers were on him—she was the ringleader no doubt. It had already been obvious then, from the way she had stayed back in the fight, shouting commands from a safe distance until her involvement in the scuffle had become unavoidable. Though Yuuri remembered her being quite disheveled by the end of it, she looked immaculate now, her hair carefully arranged and glossy, her makeup as tastefully applied as her outfit was chosen.

If that was not enough of an indication, the way the other two kept looking back and forth between Yuuri and her would have given her away.

Huffing and shaking off the water that was running into his eyes, Yuuri tried to rapidly get his bearings.

More people dotted around the room, back against the walls. About a dozen, all considered. Obviously they had not made the mistake of underestimating him. A shame—it could be quite useful to be underestimated.

Tied to a chair—of course he was. The chair bolted to the floor, concrete. Hands bound not with ordinary cuffs but heavy shackles tight around his wrist. Not something he could wiggle out of with a dislocated thumb. His arms threaded through the metal bars of the chair’s back, restricting his movement. Feet tied to the chair’s legs. He was almost completely immobile. These people were not amateurs.

He was still wearing his kevlar—either they didn’t care that he wore it, or they hadn’t bothered to check. It made sense that they weren’t planning on just shooting him, or they would have done so much earlier.

There were several points of pain in his body, the worst in his head and his ribs, but none of them overwhelming. He remembered one of the brawnier men in the ambush team full body tackling him and sending them both crashing into something, effectively ending the fight as Yuuri was knocked out.

His guns were gone, of course, but he couldn’t tell if the knife in his right boot or the garrotte in his wrist watch were still there.

All this information filtered through his senses almost automatically within the first few seconds of his waking up. He looked up at the woman in front of him, baring his teeth.

“What do you want?”

She was still regarding him with a measured gaze, features neutral except for a slight pout that could just be the natural set of her mouth.

“Do you know who I am?”, she asked back. Her voice was calm, accent refined, North American for sure, but impossible to define closer from so few words.

Though Yuuri strongly suspected that she was connected with one of his former marks, he could say with some certainty that he hadn’t met her before.

“I assume you are about to tell me.”

“Cain…”, she uttered, crossing her arms contemplatively, “I’ve been waiting for quite some time to have a little talk with you. You know, you’ve become a lot less elusive these last few years, but also a lot better protected.”

So she was from his time as a free agent. Not that that narrowed it down very much. Yuuri raised an eyebrow, looking at her silently. In these situations it was the best policy to speak as little as possible. Don’t give anything away. Don’t admit to anything.

She took a step closer, still staring down at him without any emotion.

“You killed my fiancé, you know.”

Yuuri sighed deeply.

“My condolences”, he said, his voice hoarse in his own ears, and cleared his throat. Of course it was someone else seeking retribution for their loved one’s death in the wrong place.

For the first time, an emotion showed on the woman’s face; it was pure rage as she stepped closer and without a warning slapped Yuuri hard across the face with the back of her hand. Her ring bit sharply into Yuuri’s cheek.

“Don’t you dare mock me”, she hissed, “It’s your fault he’s dead and you’re going to help make up for it.”

“And why would I do that?”, Yuuri asked, stretching his smarting jaw, “Whether or not I killed him, it is certainly not on me that he’s dead. Chances are I was just doing my job.”

She leaned down close to him, fixing him with a piercing stare. “Oh, I know”, she said, “that’s the only reason why you’re still alive. Well, that and the fact you’re going to tell me who was really behind it, so I can make them pay.”

Yuuri gave her a humourless grin. “I’m afraid I cannot divulge the names of my clients. Company policy, so sorry.”

She struck him again.

“I thought I’d told you not to mock me!” She shook out her hand, carefully flexing her fingers, and took a deep breath.

“But don’t worry…”, she said, “It’s not like I expected you to come right out with it. I am well prepared for this eventuality.”

With a quick gesture from her, the man who had emptied the bucket of water over Yuuri threw the bucket aside with a hollow thud that reverberated in the empty room, and pulled a knuckleduster out of his jacket pocket, letting it glide over his knuckles.

At the same time, a middle-aged woman who had probably been standing behind Yuuri, outside of his periphery, rolled a cart into his field of vision, containing various implements whose purpose Yuuri didn’t have to guess at.

Yuuri made sure to keep his expression carefully unaffected, meeting the woman’s eyes, unimpressed.

“So”, she continued, “I will ask you nicely once. And you will answer me honestly if you have any sense. Who ordered the death of Jean-Jacques Leroy?”

Yuuri couldn’t quite hold back the disbelieving snort that rose up in him hearing that name.

“Really?”, he asked, “all of this for _JJ Leroy_?”

Even though he knew he’d take another punch before the words were out of his mouth, this one was harder to stomach, being delivered with a lot more force and the help of a knuckleduster. The woman—Isabella Yang, as Yuuri now knew—having stepped back, regarded him coldly as Yuuri held back a yell of pain, the taste of blood already spreading in his mouth.

“I should be careful how you speak of JJ if I were you”, she said, “because I am leaving you in the very capable hands”, she gestured towards the two men and the woman at her sides, “of the Leroys.”

Yuuri cursed under his breath before looking up at them. The middle-aged woman, with reddish hair and square glasses, had come to stand next to the other man, who was around the same age as her. JJ’s parents, most likely. The man who had punched Yuuri, on Isabella’s other side, was younger, tall and broad, with dark hair, and bore a certain resemblance so JJ, as far as Yuuri remembered him. His brother, perhaps.

“Believe me when I say”, Isabella continued, “that they are just as adamant about finding out about your client as I am. So I’m sure you’ll come to an agreement… eventually.”

* * *

Yuuri was starting to shiver.

His clothes were still soaking wet and the temperature in whatever run-down building he was kept in could barely be warmer than the Russian April weather outside—if he was indeed still in Russia at all. After the adrenaline of his first encounter with the Leroys had begun to dissipate, Yuuri was left not only exhausted and bleeding but also freezing cold, chained to his metal chair. He tried to suppress the violent shudders that ran through his body, the chattering of his teeth, but it was pointless. His body was desperately trying to keep warm, and the soaked clothes still clinging to his limbs, heavy, were leaching any heat he had left.

He wasn’t worried about freezing to death, even though he felt like it—the Leroys wouldn’t leave him alone for that long, not while Yuuri hadn’t yet told them what they wanted to know. But for now they had left him to stew. After a few more punches from—presumably—JJ’s brother, some to his stomach which had thankfully been somewhat mitigated by his kevlar, and a few more vicious ones to his face, they had gone and left him alone, only a few guards along the walls in the middle distance. It had been hardly enough to convince even the most weak-willed person to spill anything, but Yuuri knew it wasn’t supposed to be, not yet. No, it was just a taste of their displeasure, and now they were making him wait.

Left shivering and in pain and with the cart with various sinister instruments in plain view he was supposed to contemplate on his situation, was supposed to imagine in quite colourful detail what might happen to him if he didn’t talk, and decide that it was not worth it, saving them the trouble of actually having to use the things they had so lovingly arranged on the cart.

Yuuri would not make it that simple for them.

Yuuri would not at all make it simple for them.

Yuuri was nothing if not stubborn.

And Yuuri had principles that he operated under, always, the only way it was possibly for him to survive doing a job such as he did, both out there in the world of crime and inside the confines of his own head.

Disregard his principles and he would quickly find himself in way deeper waters than he was able to navigate his way out of. And one of those principles was to never give away the identity of his client to anyone except his mark—and only his mark—right before he killed them. Jean-Jacques Leroy had known who had wanted him dead, and he was the only one who needed to know.

Speaking of deep waters, however… Yuuri could make out a handful of the instruments arranged on that very tasteful torture wagon, and most of which he knew or suspected the use of. He knew exactly what the ratty old towel and the second bucket of water were for, and that one he was decidedly not looking forward to.

Not that he was looking forward to any of them, of course, but the prospect of physical pain was not enough to scare Yuuri. He had borne more than his fair share of pain in his life, and he knew the techniques of how to make it through it, how to make himself numb and take himself out of his own head for the duration of it. And while the prospect of permanent mutilation was more worrying, it still paled in comparison to what that damn towel could do.

It was not an experience Yuuri wished to repeat, that utterly oppressive feeling of doom, of death, squeezing tight around his throat and his lungs and closing in with darkness around the edges of his self, uncomfortably reminiscent of the panic attacks of his youth.

It was…

Well, he would just have to hope that it wouldn’t come to that.

As of yet, he had formulated no plan on how to proceed. He couldn’t see a way out of his current position unless he managed to talk someone into releasing him from this fucking chair. He could barely move more than his head, let alone having any hopes of freeing himself from his bonds. Isabella and the Leroys were not that careless. As for outside help…

Yuuri was fairly certain—no, he was absolutely certain, the conviction sat like a rod of steel in his spine—that Victor would do everything in his power to get him out, with or without the Pakhan’s approval. And Victor’s power was considerable, however… there were too many variables. Yuuri didn’t know how long he had been out, how far away they had taken him. A secondary location was never a good place to end up in, but if Isabella had actually taken him back to Canada, it would be rather more difficult for Victor to reach him. And then… had they been able to track Yuuri? Had they found out what had happened to him at all, after Isabella had inevitably cut off his communication with base? Did they know who it was that had taken him, and how good were the Leroy’s security measures outside this room which he currently called his own? How many people were out there, just waiting for someone to come for him?

He didn’t know, and there was no way for him to find out now. All he could do at this point was keep his wits about him and look for any opportunity to escape that would present itself to him.

After all, they would have to untie him from his chair for the waterboarding.

Perhaps that was where he could start.

* * *

The flight to Moscow was the worst hour and a half Victor had ever spent.

No matter how much he tried to keep himself busy by working out the fine details of his plan and a few contingency plans and trying to find out any additional information he could, the minutes kept crawling by in slow motion, each second another mental image of Yuuri’s body, bloody, mutilated, broken, disappearing into the Moskva.

Six hours without a sign of life from Yuuri as he cobbled together a plan, eight by the time he left for the airport, inching towards ten on his way to Moscow, and Victor knew with every passing hour the likelihood of finding Yuuri alive dropped rapidly.

He kept in touch with base for as long as he could, only disconnecting his equipment briefly for takeoff and landing, just in case they received any word at all, be it from Yuuri himself or from his captors, demanding a ransom or otherwise attempting to blackmail them. So far, however, there was nothing.

So Victor buried himself in the blueprints of the industrial complex where they had seen Yuuri being taken, researched its owners, trying to find out if they were connected to the group that had taken his husband, conferring with his extraction team.

After a long discussion—if something as heated as that could still be called a discussion—the Pakhan had finally assented to give Victor a team and access to his private plane to try and get Yuuri back. Victor knew he would likely be paying for years to come for the things he had said to Yakov and the way in which he said them, but he was also not unaware that he, of all the people in the organisation, had the best chances of getting away with something like this.

And it would be sorely needed, too—from Yuri’s observation they knew that the complex was well-guarded. Not overwhelming numbers, but strategically placed, highly armed and, as it appeared, fairly attentive, Victor would need a team of good men and women to have any hopes of penetrating their defenses.

He had his team, and he had a host of weapons and as much information as could possibly be procured in such a short amount of time.

He still didn’t know who Yuuri’s captors were or what they wanted with him, but he didn’t care.

It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that they would pay.

* * *

Darkness was creeping in on him from the edges of his awareness.

Heavy, oppressive darkness making him dizzy and his limbs heavy with inertia. Spinning the room around him. Suffocating him.

He was sucking in deep, greedy gulps of air, every breath wheezing in his throat, cracking, fraying, but the darkness wasn’t receding, not this time.

There was a hand yanking him up by the hair, but the sharp pain barely penetrated the haze of dizziness.

There was a voice close to his ear. It took him long, slow seconds to parse the words that it hissed.

“Who was it? Who bought my son’s death from you?”

Even if Yuuri had wanted to reply, he didn’t think he could have made his mouth form sounds, nor have given meaning to those sounds in the form of word. He was still wheezing, coughing roughly every so often when his lungs seized, but otherwise he held his peace.

With a derisive sound, the hand holding him up let go of him. He could not get his body to cooperate quick enough to catch himself before his chin smacked hard into the concrete floor.

Not like another bruise or scrape would make any difference.

Yuuri let himself get lost in the dizziness for a while, until another voice cut through the haze.

“I think he’s got enough for now. Not like this is of any use if he can’t even speak. Tie him up again.”

Yuuri’s eyes closed in a relief. He had earned himself a reprieve, another small break in the constant onslaught of sensations.

He let the darkness in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! ❤❤❤
> 
> Chapter 5 posts on Feb 22!


	5. Chapter 5

The next time Yuuri came to, he found himself back in that same chair, tied up with those same shackles, arms twisted behind his back in that same uncomfortable position.

Staring at the same spot of dirty grey concrete.

His lungs were still burning, the pain blending in with the background agony of the rest of his body, and though he felt more awake again, more alert after being able to breathe normally for a while, he could tell he was fraying around the edges.

He tried hard to cling to that rational part of his brain, the one that could take a step back from his situation and look at it objectively, that could think it through into the last, smallest areas of probability and make a conscious choice on how to act. The part of him that knew how vital it was for him to keep his mouth _shut_.

Because despite all of their talk about this not being personal, there was a glee that the Leroys took in trying to make him talk, a certain pleasure evident in every word and deed they inflicted on Yuuri that told him without a shadow of a doubt that once they had gotten the information they wanted out of him, there was absolutely no reason for them to keep him alive.

But that part of his brain grew fainter, more distant, with every time they strapped him to that damn bench, lost a little more ground to the frantic, impulsive, _scared_ part of him that wanted nothing else than to breathe, immediately.

So far, he hadn’t been close to talking yet, at least not about what they wanted him to say. He had taken a few ill-advised opportunities, however, to open his mouth and try and provoke the Leroys into changing tack and doing anything else to him, anything at all. It had worked a few times, too, Yuuri was sure he had a few bruises and lacerations and contusions to show for it. But try as he might, it seemed Yuuri couldn’t quite hide just how much he hated the waterboarding. So that’s what they returned to over and over again.

Already he found himself pleading, if only the privacy of his own head, for anything at all to happen to interrupt it, to end it, even while his mouth was still sown shut with his last fraying thread of sheer stubbornness.

His self-preservation was warring with itself, the desperate need for any reprieve pitching against the certain knowledge that if he gave in, he would die.

Sucking a deep breath into his aching lungs, Yuuri tried to center himself, flexing his arms against his shackles just to ground himself in the here and now, but his mind kept spiraling away from him.

Shaking his head, he tried to remind himself of those old techniques he had learned. What had it been? Five things he could see.

Forcing himself to lift his head from the empty concrete, Yuuri looked around. Just there, a few meters in front of him were that wooden bench, sloping slightly, and the cart next to it— _shit_ —with a painful surge in his stomach, Yuuri turned his face another way. There was one of the guards standing by a door at the wall. There was the door itself, metal painted a greying white, plastic handle. There were a bunch of tubes and pipes criss-crossing on the ceiling.

Another deep breath. Four things he could feel. There was the stiff kevlar vest still wrapped firmly around his upper body. His damp, stringy hair tickling the skin of his cheek. The shackles holding his wrists in place. The metal of his wedding ring, made warm and smooth by the heat of his body.

Three things he could hear. Yuuri strained to listen. The room itself was quiet, only some humming coming from the pipes or the walls beyond them. Yuuri tried to identify anything else beyond the irregular sound of his own breathing. There—a gunshot, faint and distant. Yuuri’s head snapped around, a burst of adrenaline suddenly sharpening his focus.

A gunshot?

No, he was sure. He had heard the sound too many times in the course of his life to mistake it for anything else. It had been far away, almost out of earshot, but it had sounded contained. Inside the building. He listened again—yes, there was another. Not much closer, if at all, but this time Yuuri had seen the reaction of the guard by the door, the way they had winced ever so slightly, the disconcerted look they had exchanged with someone behind Yuuri, likely another guard. Over the next two minutes there were more shots, and shouts too, and they definitely seemed to be coming closer.

Yuuri didn’t allow himself to think—to hope—just yet, but there was definitely _something_ going on in the building, and if nothing else, perhaps he could make use of the distraction for himself. The guards seemed to be having a silent conversation over his head now, which ended with the guard in front of him rolling their eyes and carefully opening the door beside them, gun drawn, slipping out into the hall that Yuuri could briefly see beyond.

Behind him, too there was the unmistakable sound of a gun being drawn from a holster, a safety being released.

Yuuri tensed, his fists clenching in their bonds. Was this it? Would they get rid of him before anyone could come too close?

He didn’t try to look back—he already knew he wouldn’t be able to see, not with the way he was bound. Instead he breathed out slowly, closed his eyes, thought of Victor—and waited.

For a few moment there was nothing. Then—a quick succession of muffled noises, clothes rustling, steps, a grunt, a silenced gunshot.

Yuuri took another breath. It hadn’t hit him, didn’t even seem to have been aimed in his direction.

Another second and there were measured, clear steps, coming up behind him. Every muscle tense, Yuuri didn’t dare look behind him. No matter what happened next, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it.

The steps stopped right behind his chair, and then there was a cool hand brushing aside his hair, and hot, soft lips pressing a kiss to the base of his neck.

All the tension seeped out of Yuuri’s body, and he went slack in his chair.

“Vitya”, he breathed.

He was safe now.

The steps rounded his chair and there was Victor, dressed in a pristine white suit and shining, blood red high heels. The lipstick he was wearing was in a matching shade. Clasped in his hand was his favourite white-gold plated gun with the mother of pearl handle, silencer in place.

Every one of his movements was precise and sharp, but as he knelt down in front of Yuuri, he could see the fury on his face softening with worry and affection. Carefully cradling Yuuri’s face with his free hand, he murmured: “I’m sorry it took me so long, my love.”

Yuuri shook his head slightly, careful not to dislodge Victor’s hand. His cool fingers felt soothing on Yuuri’s feverish skin. “It doesn’t matter”, he said, “I knew you would come.”

He could see Victor’s eyes skim over his body, taking in his injuries, at least the ones that were visible. His expression darkened, but his voice remained calm as he spoke.

“Let’s get you out of here. Can you stand?”

“Yes.” Yuuri’s voice sounded a lot surer of himself than he felt, as Victor unwrapped the leather straps binding Yuuri’s ankles to the chair. Yuuri carefully and slowly stretched out his legs, trying to get the feeling back into them, while Victor stepped behind him once more and busied himself with the shackles around his wrists. They finally fell away, and Yuuri’s shoulders popped when he pulled his arms out from between the metal bars of the chair’s back. He rotated them slowly, the numbness of being stuck in the same position for a long time being replaced by a rush of pain.

Then he stood up.

He was surprisingly steady on his feet, most likely due to the rush of adrenaline—he knew it would dissipate in time. “Let’s go”, he said.

“In a moment.” Victor reached under his suit jacket and undid some strap that Yuuri had not noticed before, unbuckling something from his back, which he passed to Yuuri. “I thought you might want this.”

Yuuri’s fingers ran over the familiar texture of his katana’s sheath, delicate under his fingertips. Buckling the harness to his own body over his ruined clothes, Yuuri felt the familiar weight settle like a surety on his back.

As soon as his hands were free, he reached out, grabbing Victor by the lapels and pulling him into a deep kiss, all hot tongue and sharp teeth and smoldering desperation. When Yuuri let him go, Victor was flushed and they were both a little breathless. “Sorry”, Yuuri said, stepping back, and gesturing to himself, filthy with blood, sweat and dirt, “I‘ll ruin your nice suit.”

“No!”, Victor snapped, so sharp that it made Yuuri look up with a raised eyebrow, “Don’t _ever_ apologise for kissing me.”

Yuuri gave a weak grin. “I wasn’t” he said. “I apologised that I _stopped_ kissing you, because I didn’t want to ruin your clothes.”

He turned away, stepping toward the guard crumpled by the door behind the chair, picking up his gun that he surely wouldn’t need any more.

“That’s alright then”, Victor said, “but you know I never mind you ruining my clothes.”

Straightening up and stepping back, Yuuri huffed a humourless laugh.

“Let’s perhaps get out of here first.”

Victor nodded, but still stopped him as Yuuri walked past toward the other door to the room, ever so gently turning Yuuri’s face to look at the bruises that must surely have turned dark and angry colours by now.

“What do these guys want from you, anyway?”, he asked in a whisper.

“You don’t know?”

Victor shrugged. “I didn’t exactly stop to ask.”

Yuuri mirrored his gesture. “They want to know who wanted JJ Leroy dead.”

Victor snorted. “Who didn’t, would be a more appropriate question”, he said, “That jackass pissed off more people than I can count on both hands.”

“Well”, Yuuri gave a wry grin, pretending at more levity than he really felt, “I think they were looking for something more specific than that.”

Victor’s expression darkened again, and Yuuri didn’t miss his eyes flickering toward the cart only a couple of meters from them. “What did they—?”

Yuuri shivered, fighting down the revulsion roiling in his stomach, and quickly cut him off with a shake of his head. “I—Let’s… let’s just get out of here first”, he whispered.

“Of course.” Victor leaned down and pressed a careful kiss to his forehead, then took ahold of Yuuri’s hand and kissed his ring, too. “Let’s go home.”

Yuuri nodded and turned towards the door. Every bone in his body was aching, but he reached back and with one fluid, familiar motion he pulled his katana out of its sheath, letting it dance circles in his hand. His husband was next to him and a blood red lipstick kiss imprinted on his neck.

Nothing could stop them now.

* * *

The hallway beyond the room that had been Yuuri’s cell was empty, as were the next few rooms that they passed, but they could hear the sound of fighting in the distance, getting steadily closer as they moved.

“I had my team create a distraction at the front”, Victor said, conversationally, trying to keep his eyes focused on his surroundings rather than fixed on Yuuri, “so that I could get in the back and get you out.”

“How did you know where they kept me?”

Yuuri’s voice was calm, but Victor knew Yuuri better than that, could see beyond his stoic facade, see the way he held himself so tight with tension that he might snap any moment. The slightly frantic look in his eyes, the way his movements lacked some of his usual fluidity, no doubt hampered by countless bruises, contusions and lacerations. No one else but Victor would see in him anything other than that impenetrable emotionless mask he always wore when working. But Yuuri was a professional, _Cain_ was a professional. He hadn’t made that name for himself out of nothing. He wouldn’t fall apart until he knew it was safe to do so.

“We didn’t for sure of course”, Victor said with a shrug, “but we had the blueprints and could get an idea of what would make the most sense, strategically.”

Yuuri hummed. “Your team?”

“I talked Pakhan into giving me extraction team”, Victor murmured with a wry grin, “got Scarlet leading the attack out front, Greaser to sneak me in the back, Baba Yaga back at base for tech. And of course Puma also came along.”

Yuuri huffed a laugh. “Of course. He wouldn’t let that opportunity go.”

“Indeed”, Victor replied, glancing at Yuuri from the corner of his eyes, and suppressing a chuckle. “He was strangely adamant.”

In fact, Yuri had been the closest to distressed that Victor had ever seen him when they arrived in Moscow, all hidden under a thick layer of bluster and insults, of course. He didn’t want to hear a word about staying behind, regardless of how many times he’d called Yuuri a pig in the process.

Raising an eyebrow, Yuuri asked, “Isn’t he always? What’s strange about that?”, but Victor just smiled and reached out to run a hand through Yuuri’s hair, messy and stringy now instead of his usual carefully styled undercut. Victor knew Yuuri still didn’t quite realise—or want to realise, perhaps—what a legend the name Cain had become in their circles.

As they got closer to the sound of fighting, they both fell silent by unspoken agreement, focusing more on their surroundings, tightening their grip around their weapons. There were clear signs of a scuffle around them now, blood spatters on the walls and floors, broken down doors, bullet shells scattered on the floor, though they had yet to pass any bodies.

Their steps slowed as the hallway spilled into a large open hall spanning two stories, rattling metal walkways running along the walls on the first floor.

Victor and Yuuri were on the ground floor, right underneath one of these walkways, hearing the metal creak and clang with booted steps above their heads, gunshots reverberating on the bare walls. Across the open floor of the hall, small fighting groups were scattered in close combat, prone bodies strewn here and there. Victor could spot Mila and Yuri easily among the mess of fighters, along with a few more of Yakov’s men.

Sharing a quick look, Victor and Yuuri nodded at one another before stepping forward and into the fray. Moving towards the other Russians, Victor could hear Yuuri’s gunshots next to him, emptying one clip after the next, picking up and discarding guns from those felled. His shots still hit with such precision—knees and hands and shoulders—every one of them making sure that the target didn’t get up again without being fatal.

Victor, in the meantime, pulled out a few of his throwing knives and let them fly, deep red blades whirring through the air. He picked them out of his victims’ chests and heads as he passed them—he didn’t have the same kind of principles that Yuuri did, had no use for them, really.

Eventually, as they moved closer to Mila and Yuri, Yuuri let another gun clatter to the floor and switched over to his katana. Already Victor could see that their opponents were thinning out, the fight slowing down, but once the humming of Yuuri’s blade was filling the air, the feeling of the fight markedly changed. Victor could practically see the last of their enemies reevaluating their stance.

These people knew exactly just whom they had held captive for the last twelve hours, and they knew as well as anyone that you would do better to not get on the wrong side of Cain and his swords.

Some of them made a good effort of keeping up the fight, but they didn’t last long. Some of them decided it wasn’t worth it. For these, Victor cocked his mother of pearl gun and and took them out one by one as they ran. They’d have done better to stay—Yuuri might have cut off a limb, but he would not have killed them outright. Such was the price of cowardice.

Eventually, the final gunshot rang out and a deafening kind of silence fell over the hall. Mila was already sheathing her stiletto knives, grinning her wild grin at them. Yuri, a few paces from her, was giving a guy one last spiteful kick before straightening up, the usual scowl on his face.

“I see you found the pig”, he said to Victor before sneering at Yuuri. “Good job getting fucking captured, _Cain_.”

He spit out Yuuri’s name like the worst kind of insult.

“Sorry for the inconvenience”, Yuuri said, and when Victor looked over he was wearing that calm, quiet smile that Victor knew drove his enemies mad, his persona firmly in place now that they were around other people.

It seemed to not only work on his enemies, as Yuri snarled something wordless and stomped off. “Let’s get out of here already”, he hissed.

The rest of them followed along, moving toward the front door of the complex. “Did you guys encounter the Leroys or Isabella Yang yet?”, Yuuri murmured, low enough that it wouldn’t carry through the hall.

“Isabella Yang?”, Mila asked over her shoulder. Right behind Yuri, the two of them were the farthest ahead of the group, while Victor and Yuuri hung back a little behind the rest of the Pakhan’s men.

“Mh”, Yuuri stepped over a body, letting his eyes sweep through the open floor, focused, “she’s behind all this. She was JJ Leroy’s fiancée. I have a feeling she won’t let us get away without a fight.”

Yuuri hadn’t finished the sentence yet when a prickling sensation ran up Victor’s spine, but it was already too late. Before he could leap aside, a figure dropped down from the walkway above their heads, knocking Victor off balance and slinging an arm around his neck, pulling him back. He stumbled backward, pulled by the strength of a man he couldn’t see, and immediately Yuuri raised his katana once more—but before he could do anything, these was another blade, right at Victor’s throat.

Victor went still, and so did Yuuri.

“Your feeling does not deceive you, Cain”, Victor heard a woman’s voice saying from the walkway, and though he could not turn around to see, he had a good idea of who that voice belonged to.

Yuuri sighed. “Give it up already, Yang”, he said, voice measured, face turned up toward her even as his blade was still pointed at the man behind Victor, reeking of sweat and blood and breathing distastefully close to Victor’s ear, “There’s no way you can come out of this on top.”

“I beg to differ”, Isabella said, steps clanging on the metal walkway. “Because you are now going to lower your weapon, unless you want your precious White Gold to be harmed.”

The smile that spread on Yuuri’s face was wide and hard and painful even for Victor to look at.

“I feel sorry for you, you know”, he said, before turning toward Victor and holding his eyes for a long, firm second, before lowering his blade.

It was nothing for Victor to shift his weight and slam the sharpened heel of his shoe into the foot of the man behind him, right through the leather, skin, muscle and tendons down to the sole of his boots. The man howled in pain, pulling his foot away as soon as Victor released it, making it an easy feat for Victor to throw him off balance and duck out of his grasp. Another second and the man was on the ground, Victor straddling him, one hand knocking the knife from his grip, the other pressing a gun underneath his chin. He did not hesitate to pull the trigger.

When the shot had rung out, Victor picked himself up with a sigh, sparing a moment of mourning for his beautiful white suit, which had made it through most of the fight with nary a stain on it, but was now covered in a splatter of blood. Oh well, at least the colour went well with his shoes.

Within the few seconds that Victor had missed, Yuuri had _somehow_ made it up onto the walkway, as he noticed now, following the eyes of the rest of the group that were fixed on Isabella at the guard rail, her arms twisted behind her in an uncomfortable looking position, a gun clattered to the ground floor in front of her. Yuuri was standing behind her, holding her in place, katana at her throat, rather mirroring the position that Victor had been in just a few moments prior.

“You see”, Yuuri hissed when Victor walked into their field of vision, tucking away his gun, “my precious White Gold is not only a pretty face and a brilliant mind. He certainly does not need me to look after him. Your mistake to underestimate him so.”

Isabella’s face was contorted in a grimace of rage and pain, but then her eyes widened as Yuuri leaned closer and whispered something only she could hear.

Just for a moment, the careful mask of Cain slipped, and Victor could see the Yuuri underneath, a helpless, boundless kind of fury flickering over his expression.

By the time he slipped his katana back into its sheath, it had disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! ❤❤❤
> 
> Chapter 6 posts on Mar 8!


	6. Chapter 6

After Yuuri had climbed down from the walkway, movements careful and deliberate no doubt in deference to his countless bruises, they finally left the building behind. The lot in front of it was deserted, shadows lengthening in the evening sun and not a sound to be heard beyond their own footsteps.

Still, after what just happened, they were all a little more tense, a little more conscious of their surroundings, looking around to make sure that no one else would leap out at them from behind a wall or a car. But they made it to the far side of the lot without any further incident, the only movement coming from Otabek, who soundlessly peeled himself out of some shadow and joined the group without a word.

After having helped Victor gain access to the building, he had stayed on the lookout outside, keeping his eyes open for any complications or anyone trying to quietly disappear. But it seemed he also hadn’t seen the senior Leroys, who appeared to have vanished when the fighting first began. Perhaps they had been killed in the brawl unknowingly, or perhaps they had snuck away somehow—they weren’t sure. But Yuuri seemed to be more intent on getting out of there than on hunting them down, and since it was Yuuri they had come for, that’s what they did.

Yuri and Mila led them once more while Victor and Yuuri acted as the rearguard, past the edge of the property and a few corners further where their cars were waiting along with their drivers. The innocuous beaten up silver car that had taken the Yuris to the hotel was parked next to the van that had taken Victor and his extraction team here from the airport.

The drivers perked up as the group approached, and they were quickly herded inside. The group was somewhat worse for the wear compared to when they had arrived, not a few of them men and women sporting gunshot or stab wounds. Mila and Yuri, too, looked a little roughed up. Indeed the drivers and Otabek were the only ones who had escaped unscathed, but all things considered this was still a more than satisfactory outcome.

Hand curled casually around his husband’s arm, Victor ushered a grumbling Yuri to take the van along with the rest of the team while Victor and Yuuri took the other car. It didn’t seem to be too much of a nuisance, though, considering Yuri was already talking to Otabek enthusiastically by the time they climbed the front seat bench of the van.

Victor held on to Yuuri’s arm as the latter slipped into the back seat of the other car, appearing a little unsteady on his feet. Victor couldn’t help but wonder once again what exactly had happened here within the last twelve hours that Yuuri had spent within those walls, though that disgusting little cart he had seen next to Yuuri’s chair gave him a good idea. Looking at Yuuri from the corner of his eyes, Victor could already tell, however, that Yuuri would not want to talk about it in front of the driver.

His face was a stony mask, betraying no emotion beyond the small pinch of pain between his eyebrows.

“The Pakhan’s plane is waiting to take us home at the airport”, Victor said as the driver started up the engine, and Yuuri nodded silently.

He turned slightly towards Victor, eyes fixed on him and a somewhat more pinched expression on his face.

“What’s the matter, love?”

Reaching out, Yuuri carefully touched Victor’s neck, close to where the Leroy brother’s knife had nicked his skin when Victor had twisted out of his grasp. It was not a deep cut, to the point that Victor had not even noticed it happening at first, but due to its location it bled liberally. Not enough to be dangerous, but enough to look disconcerting.

“I’m okay, darling”, Victor said. He wanted to kiss the frown off Yuuri’s face. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Moving his hand to the back of Victor’s neck, Yuuri pulled him into a deep kiss himself, lips hot against Victor’s as he drew him in, searching. Victor lost himself in it for a few moments, until the car jolted over a pothole and Yuuri grunted into the kiss, pulling back.

“Sorry—did I bite you?”, Victor asked, but Yuuri shook his head and leaned back into his seat, though not before reaching for Victor’s hand with his own, clasping them firmly together. He was still silent, lips pressed together so hard they looked white as he stared out of the window at the run-down streets passing them by. Victor was tempted once more to press him to talk about what had happened, but he knew it was futile for now. He resigned himself to wait until they were on the plane, and in the meantime kept himself busy by looking at his husband’s profile, taking in every living, beautiful inch of him.

Except that as they drove through the battered streets, rumbling over potholes and rough gravel, Victor noticed that Yuuri’s lips weren’t the only thing about him that was pale, and his grip around Victor’s hand became harder every moment, to the point where it was painful. Eyes travelling down, Victor saw how stiffly Yuuri was holding himself. He seemed to be barely breathing, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow increments.

“Yuuri!” Victor tugged on his hand a little, though not too roughly, to catch his attention. “What’s going on? Are you injured?” The words left him in an urgent rush of breath, and when Yuuri’s eyes flickered over to him, Victor shot him a sharp look to let him know that this was not the moment to downplay anything.

It seemed to cost Yuuri a real physical effort to pry apart his lips and teeth and form the words that left him in a strained murmur.

“Yang shot at me.”

Victor sucked in a sharp breath, dread already running cold in his blood, even as Yuuri waved away his rising panic.

“It’s not—not that—I’m… still wearing my kevlar.”

This did not do much to assuage Victor’s worry, and he squeezed Yuuri’s hand a little harder still.

“When did she even—?”

“When I was climbing up the walkway. It was—ah…”, Yuuri hissed as the car took a sharp turn, “it was pretty close range.”

“Let me see”, Victor demanded, tone brooking no argument. Yuuri raised an eyebrow at him, but obediently pointed out the hole the bullet had torn into his filthy shirt. There was no blood—at least none that was fresh—which was good, but still Victor leaned closer to examine it, though he knew he wouldn’t be able to tell the extent of the damage until Yuuri took off his kevlar. Gently he ran his fingers along the frayed outer layer of the kevlar vest, even the slight pressure making Yuuri hiss again. The bullet had hit on the left side of his chest, a few centimetres below his heart.

“Ribs?”, Victor asked, and Yuuri nodded, curt.

“Broken?”

“Not sure.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Yuuri shrugged, which he seemed to regret immediately, judging by the grimace of pain. “To what end? It’s not like you can do anything about it.”

“I still want to know”, Victor said, scowling at him, “You’re my husband. You tell me this kind of thing.”

Yuuri didn’t reply.

“We can get you some painkillers on the plane”, Victor said, “Can you make it back to Piter?”

“Of course”, Yuuri gritted out between clenched teeth, in a tone of bitter surety, like he didn’t have any other choice, which, Victor supposed, he didn’t. None of them in the team were particularly medically qualified, and they couldn’t exactly just take Yuuri to a hospital. The Moscow branch of the Feltsman Bratva most likely had some kind of medical professional that worked with them, but contacting them and taking Yuuri to them would most likely not be any quicker than getting on the plane back to St. Petersburg as quickly as possible. At the mansion there was Leo, their own medic, who Victor knew would take good care of Yuuri.

With a sigh, he leaned closer to his husband, lowering his voice a little more as to be barely audible over the hum of the engine.

“You don’t have to hide that you’re in pain, you know”, he said, “not with me.”

The glance that Yuuri shot at him contained a complicated emotion that Victor couldn’t parse completely—there was something soft and something sharp in it, and a kind of resignation.

He squeezed Yuuri’s hand again, indicating that he understood, even though he wasn’t sure he did.

Forty-five minutes later they were on the plane and in the air, Yuuri keeping up his stone-faced silence all throughout while the rest of the team was beginning to loosen up with the thrill of a successful mission. Mila had insisted on cleaning up and dressing the cut on Victor's neck so it didn't get infected, but the moment that they were allowed to get up from their seats, Victor gently pulled Yuuri out of his and down the aisle, away from the main seating area toward the private room that was usually the Pakhan’s. Ushering Yuuri inside, Victor took a moment to slip out of his heels, then made a quick stop in the en suite bathroom to pick up another first aid kit and a couple of pill bottles from the medicine cabinet.

When he returned, Yuuri was still standing motionless in the middle of the room, right where Victor had left him, not even making a move to sit down.

Victor came to stand in front of him and, with a gentle sigh, brushed his messy hair back from his face. He opened his mouth, then thought better of it and peeled the skin coloured patch off his own neck that hid his mic connecting him to base. Removing the mic, he made sure to turn off the receiver, tossing both carelessly on the soft chair behind him. Then he turned towards Yuuri once more.

“Is it that bad, my love?”, he whispered.

He could see Yuuri swallow, his adam’s apple bobbing. “No.”

He didn’t seem to register the doubtful look in Victor’s eyes.

Laying both his hands gently on Yuuri’s shirt, at the top of his chest, Victor let his fingers creep towards its buttons.

“Let me see?” He hadn’t really intended for it to come out as a question, but Yuuri nodded and, still standing rigidly still, let Victor unbutton his shirt, filthy with dried blood and dirty water and who knew what else, and slip it off over Yuuri’s shoulders. More bruises and contusions were revealed on Yuuri’s arms and shoulders, but Victor knew the real damage would lie underneath the kevlar.

The moment his fingers skirted over the first of the strips holding it in place, Yuuri finally moved, sucking in a sharp breath and lifting both hands to fist them in the fabric of Victor’s jacket. He didn’t seem to want to stop him, just have something to hold on to, his eyes fixed, a little unfocused, somewhere behind Victor’s shoulder.

Gently Victor peeled away the strips of velcro, at the top of Yuuri’s shoulders first, then under his arms, around his waist. The fabric felt rough and smooth at once under his fingers, the familiar touch of it from countless times of taking them off Yuuri, or putting them on him. The vest was lightweight and relatively thin, a special make designed for maximum mobility that Yuuri got through his special contact in Thailand whose name he still wouldn’t reveal, not even to Victor. Victor had taken to referring to that contact as Trade Secrets in his mind, because that was all that Yuuri would say whenever Victor asked about them.

Yuuri winced every time Victor pulled on one of the strips, gentle though he was, and twisted his hands harder into Victor’s jacket. When the last one was opened, Victor carefully peeled away the fabric from where it was sticking to Yuuri’s torso with sweat— at least he hoped that it was only sweat.

The motley of bruises that appeared underneath made Victor’s stomach clench with a wave of nausea. He wasn’t squeamish at all—you got numb to that kind of thing in this kind of work, whether you liked it or not—but it was something else to see this kind of damage done to his husband’s body. What stood out the most of course over the smattering of bruises of different age, size and colour all over his chest and stomach was the large splash of dark red over his ribs, radiating out from a deep purple point of impact to travel up over his chest, down toward his stomach and around his side. It looked to be downright an impossibility that the skin had not been broken.

It was even more obvious now how shallow Yuuri’s breaths were, and why—the way every minute expansion of his lung must put pressure on that bleeding and the ribs underneath.

Pressing his lips together, Victor tossed the vest on the chair as well, before turning back and perfunctorily unbuttoning Yuuri’s trousers and slipping them down his legs, revealing more bruises and a host of dark red welts, criss-crossing in straight lines over his thighs from some kind of beating. Some of them had obviously broken skin, the fabric sticking to the dried blood where Victor tried to tug it down, and he could feel Yuuri trembling under his hands with the effort of staying still, staying silent, his teeth clenched so hard that Victor could see the muscles in his jaw working.

Victor’s mouth was dry by the time he stepped back, gently prying Yuuri’s hands loose from his jacket.

“Do you want to try taking a shower?”, Victor asked, and Yuuri’s eyes widened a fraction, flickering over to the open bathroom door and the shower stall beyond. He gave a short, sharp shake of his head.

“Okay.”

Victor took a step to the sideboard, opening the first aid kit and looking through it for supplies. He pressed one of the pill bottles into Yuuri’s hand. “Take a couple of these”, he murmured, “it’ll help with the pain.”

Then we went back to the bathroom for a moment and came back with a damp washcloth to get rid of the worst of the dried blood and grime at least. Starting with Yuuri’s shoulders, he rubbed him down, avoiding the worst of the bruises and putting only the slightest bit of pressure on the rest. He had to go and rinse out the cloth a few times at the bathroom sink, watching the greyish pink water drain with a shudder.

“Take them”, Victor repeated when he returned and saw that Yuuri was still staring at the pill bottle, unmoving, “They’re just some Oxy, they’ll tide you over until Leo can see you.”

Yuuri stared down at them for a long moment more before he shook his head. “I shouldn’t”, he said, “I’ll have to report to the Pakhan when I’m back. I should keep a clear mind until then.”

Victor stared at him, disbelieving. “Yuuri! Forget the Pakhan!”

Yuuri looked up at him, a crease between his eyebrows.

With a huff, Victor shifted his weight. “You know what I mean! He’s not going to care. You’ve got a couple of broken ribs, most likely. He wouldn’t want you to be in this kind of pain.”

“I’m going to wait.”

“Don’t be stupid, Yuuri! Just take the pills. You don’t have to be in this kind of pain.”

Yuuri’s lips pressed together in a firm line. “There must be other painkillers in the kit”, he said, “You can give me those. Some ibuprofen or something.”

“They’re not going to help as much! Just—”

Yuuri levelled him with a stare, his jaw set firmly, and Victor knew there was no sense in arguing right them.

“Fine”, he huffed, turning around to locate some of the pills in the kit and getting Yuuri some water to swallow them with. Only then did he pick up his washcloth again, lifting his hand to gently wipe the blood and sweat off Yuuri’s face, but he was stopped by a hand closing like a vise around his wrist, a sudden grip so hard that it hurt.

“No!” The word was almost a shout as it ripped itself from Yuuri’s throat, his eyes widened and his chest heaving with sudden rapid breaths that made him wince in pain.

“No”, he said again, softer this time, and Victor stared at him as Yuuri stared at his hand, the washcloth in it. Only when Victor allowed him to push his hand back down, away from his face, did Yuuri avert his sharp, fixed look, his eye staking on that unfocused look once more.

Victor swallowed against the hard, hot lump in his throat and fought the sudden, overwhelming urge to pull Yuuri into a hug, knowing how much it would hurt him right now.

“Yuuri…”, he whispered instead, demonstratively tossing the washcloth away before lifting his other hand tentatively and curling it around Yuuri’s check when Yuuri didn’t move away. “Can I kiss you?”

Yuuri nodded and Victor leaned forward to slot his lips against Yuuri’s, pressing closer as far as he dared without risking hurting him. But the soft, insistent pressure of his lips was not met with any response whatsoever. With a sigh, Victor pulled back and softly ran his thumb over Yuuri’s cheek before letting him go.

“Wait here”, he murmured, “I brought some clean clothes for you.”

Again Yuuri’s only response was a nod, leaving Victor to hurry out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you've enjoyed it! ❤❤❤
> 
> **Chapter 7 posts on Mar 22!**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Comments keep me fed! 🥰
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/nihidea_art) and [tumblr](http://theliteraryluggage.tumblr.com/), and I also have a [discord server (18+)](https://discord.gg/Qfwp9XMTPg).  
> If you want Early Access to all my Angst Week Fics, I'm sure you know where to find it 💜💜💜


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